Sometimes important antiques are diminutive in size and this tiny find is big in terms of its power to sweep us back to a brutal time in British royal history.
The rock crystal seal, set in gold and measuring just 1.8cm in length, was discovered during a routine home visit in Norfolk. It’s around 500 years old. It’s remarkable something so small has survived five centuries without being mislaid.
But there’s a much more important aspect to this minute antique. It’s a Mary Regnant rock crystal seal. It bears the royal monogram of Queen Mary I. Known as Bloody Mary or Mary Tudor, she was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain and the Habsburg dominions as wife of King Philip II from 1556 until her death in 1558.
The seal may have been used within her circle of close confidants, possibly carried on a chatelaine, chains on a woman’s belt used for keys and important items. A monarch did not need to sign every official document. Authorisation could be given by an appointed person. When few people could read or write, a seal provided a pictorial expression of approval.
The seal, Lot 31, is being offered on November 16 in The Rostrum November Jewellery, Watches, Silver and Fine Art Auction in Norfolk guided at £600-£800.
You can’t help but wonder if this seal was handled by Queen Mary herself, a woman remembered for burning Protestants at the stake in a bid to restore Catholicism to Britain. This was a time when monarchs ruled nations in a fashion that may appear shocking today.
Born in 1516, Mary was the only surviving child of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Henry VIII (1491-1547) is known for six marriages, beheading two wives and being excommunicated by the Pope. His efforts to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled due to their inability to have a male heir led to a disagreement with Pope Clement VII and the English Reformation. Henry VIII separated the Church of England from papal authority, appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolved convents and monasteries. He was not a man to be messed with. He used charges of treason to quell dissent and sometimes executed people without trial.
Mary was familiar with brutal power, though her arrival emerged prior to this destructive period. At three days old she was baptised into the Catholic faith. Her fair complexion, blue eyes and reddish-golden hair resembled the looks of her parents. She was also ruddy-cheeked, a trait inherited from her father.
A precocious child, in July 1520, aged only four, she entertained a French delegation with a performance on the virginals, a type of harpsichord. Her mother commissioned Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives to write De Institutione Feminae Christianae, a treatise on the education of girls. By the age of nine Mary could read and write Latin. She studied French, Spanish, music and dance.
Henry VIII doted on Mary and boasted to Venetian ambassador Sebastian Giustiniani that she never cried. But Henry never let affection stand in the way of his need for a male heir. He was disappointed his marriage produced no sons. By the time Mary was nine it was apparent that Henry and Catherine would have no more children, leaving Henry without a legitimate male heir. In 1525, Henry sent Mary to the border of Wales to preside over the Council of Wales and the Marches. She was given her own court based at Ludlow Castle
There was far worse to come. Mary was declared illegitimate and barred from succession following the annulment of her parents’ marriage in 1533, though she would later be restored via the Third Succession Act 1543. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded their father in 1547 at the age of nine. When Edward became terminally ill in 1553, he attempted to remove Mary from the line of succession because he guessed, correctly, she would oppose Protestant reforms.
Mary battled to reverse the English Reformation and restore Catholicism but was largely thwarted by Parliament. During her five-year reign she had 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian persecutions, hence her name Bloody Mary.
We are reminded of all this thanks to this tiny seal which carries an estimative of £600-£800 in Hansons Auctioneers’ November auctions. It has been passed down through the generations in the same family. It emerged from the estate of Sir Reginald Kennedy-Cox (1881-1966), an ancestor of the current owner.
Sir Reginald, a social reformer, playwright and author, mixed with royalty including three consecutive kings. He was best known for his social work in London’s East End. He founded Dockland Settlements which gained royal patronage. He was knighted in 1930 and appointed CBE in 1944.
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